In the light of the blue lamp Marynia's face seemed very pale; her lips quivered, but she answered without hesitation,-- "I will, Litus." The little girl raised Marynia's hand to her lips a second time; her head fell on the pillow, and she lay for a while with closed lids; after some time, however, two tears flowed down her cheeks. Then followed a longer silence; the rain was beating against the window-panes. Pan Stanislav and Marynia were sitting motionless without looking at each other; both felt, however, that their fates had been decided that night, but they were as if dazed by what had happened. In the chaos of thought and feelings neither of them knew how to note or indicate what was passing within them. In that silence, which was kept instinctively, lest perchance they might look each other in the eyes, hour followed hour. The clock struck midnight, then one; about two Pani Emilia slipped in like a shadow. "Is she sleeping?" inquired she. "No, mamma," answered Litka. "Art thou well?" "Well, mamma." And when Pani Emilia sat near her bed, the little one embraced her neck; and, nestling her yellow head at her breast, she said,-- "I know now, mamma, that when a sick child begs for anything, people never refuse." And she nestled up to her mother some time yet; then, drawing out each word as sleepy children do, or very tired ones, she said,-- "Pan Stas will not be sad any more; and I will tell mamma why--" But here her head became heavy on her mother's breast, and Pani Emilia felt the cold sweat coming on the hands of the child, as well as on her temples. "Litus!" exclaimed she, with a suppressed, frightened voice. And the child began,-- "I feel so strange, so weak--" Her thoughts grew dim; and after a while she continued,-- "Oh, the sea is rolling--such a big sea!--and we are all sailing on it. Mamma! mamma!" And a new attack came, dreadful, pitiless. The little girl's body was drawn in convulsions, and her eyesight turned toward the back of her head. There was no chance of illusion this time; death was at hand, and visible in the pale light of the lamp, in the dark corner of the room, in the sound of the window-panes, stricken by the rain, and in the noise of the wind, full of terrified voices and cries. Pan Stanislav sprang up and ran for the doctor. In a quarter of an hour both appeared before the closed doors of the room, uncertain whether the child was living yet, and they disappeared through it immediately,--first Pan Stanislav, then the doctor, who, from the moment that they had pulled him out of bed, kept repeating one phrase, "Is it fear or emotion?" Some of the servants, with sleepy and anxious faces, were gathered at the door, listening; and in the whole house followed a silence, long continued, which weighed down like lead. It was broken at last by Marynia, who was the first to come out of the closed chamber, her face as pale as linen, and she said hurriedly,--